Contemporary retail stores, particularly supermarkets, compete fiercely to attract new customers to their stores and to maintain the store loyalty of their present customers. One mode of attraction is by offering a personalized service which is adapted to meet the particular expectations and needs of each member of a highly diversified clientele.
Most modern supermarkets implement some form of computerization or electronic technology in their day-to-day operations. This technology typically consists of using point-of-sale (POS) systems for automating checkout procedures, assisting sales personnel, and the like. POS systems generally include one or more automated check-out terminals which are capable of sensing and interpreting a Universal Product Code (UPC) which is printed, or tagged, on each item of merchandise to be purchased, as a barcode. Conventionally, a barcode might include an item's Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) code as well as other additional information pertaining to a specific item of merchandise. A POS terminal, a kiosk terminal or a sales person's hand-held terminal might be coupled to a store computer system, such as a network server or some other store platform host, which is able to recognize and process UPC or SKU information which has been sensed and interpreted by a barcode reader comprising a conventional terminal. A database, accessible by the computer system, might include a list of merchandise items stocked by the store, a UPC or SKU for each of these items, and various types of merchandise identification information, including pricing, inventory, style, color, etc., associated with each UPC or SKU number. When a customer is ready to make purchase, a store clerk simply uses an automated terminal to read the barcode markings on each of the customers selections. A computer interprets the UPC or SKU contained in the barcode, accesses the data base to determine the price for each item and maintains a running total of the purchase price.
Many retail establishments, such as supermarkets, also use computerized systems to convey pricing and other information about its merchandise to its customers and to acquire information about the kinds of merchandise purchased by a customer, the frequency of such purchases, the affective of advertising and in-store promotional activities, and other similar indicia of a customer's shopping habits. A supermarket might use this information to control the costs of providing personalized services and products to its customers and to enhance a customer's shopping experience by providing increased convenience and flexibility.
In particular, mass-merchandisers and grocery or supermarket establishments are especially interested in installing self-scanning and self-checkout systems throughout the retail floor area in order to reduce the establishment's floor staff. Thus reducing labor costs, and also to minimize the amount of time that customers must spend waiting in line at a central checkout station. In one particular prior art-type implementation, a retail establishment might allocate a certain number of central checkout lanes for self-scanning and self-checkout operation by particular customers. In this particular circumstance, a set of self-scanning and self-checkout stations are established next to, or in proximity to, the standard, conventional checkout lanes which are operated by store personnel. A customer has a choice as to whether they wish to proceed through the self-operated checkout lane or whether to proceed through a checkout lane operated by a store clerk. This type of existing system, although designed to enable a customer to save a certain amount of time during a shopping trip, suffers from being unable to interact with the customer while they are shopping. For example, although self-operated checkout systems can aid a customer in speeding-up the checkout process, it is unable to assist the customer in determining whether or not to purchase a particular item of merchandise based on that item's price, or some other purchase decision making metric. Before going shopping, customers often investigate what items need to be replenished and what new items need to be purchased. Many customer spend considerable time making shopping lists based on these investigations. However, once in the store, a customer is often unable to determine the specific price which must be paid for a particular item of merchandise, either because the item is on special sale, is further subject to a store loyalty club discount, and the like, although, in many supermarkets, signs throughout the store give customers a general indication as to the price of various items, these signs often fail to give customers precise information about the various discounts related to a product. Customers, moreover, often fail to obtain the full benefit of the savings offered by a store. Despite the advertisements and signs within a store, it is not uncommon for a customer to walk by a sales item without realizing that it is on sale. Even if a customer does attempt to purchase an item advertised as being on sale, when the item is scanned during check-out, the price charged to the customer will often not reflect the sales price and will go unnoticed by the customer.
Certain other prior art-type systems have attempted to remedy these deficiencies by incorporating the use of electronic personal shopping systems which include a mobile terminal that is either hand-held or mounted on a shopping cart, at the desire of the customer. These mobile terminals are provided with a barcode scanner and sometimes include a wireless communication capability for transmitting purchase information to a store network server or host computer. As a customer uses the system, they scan the barcode of a merchandise item into the mobile terminal through the barcode scanner. If the mobile terminal is configured to include a display screen, the mobile terminal might be able to verify the present price of an item, allowing the customer to decide whether or not to purchase that item. If the price is acceptable, the customer might effect a purchase transaction by merely pressing an "enter" key, thereby transmitting the scanned-in UPC or SKU code to the store computer system. Each customer's running total is maintained in a file and is available to a check-out clerk when the customer is ready to pay for the goods and leave the store.
Such systems are able to provide a certain degree of real-time self-scanning services during a customer shopping trip, but is disadvantageously expensive to implement on a practical basis in a, for example, large supermarket. Specifically, a sufficient number of mobile terminals must be maintained on-hand, and in good operating condition, to support the maximum number of customers anticipated to visit the store during its highest customer density periods. At other times of the day, or during other days of the week, when customer density is considerably lower, a rather large number of these mobile terminals will go unused. Given the investment needed to facilitate a store with a large number of terminals, underutilization of these terminals represents a considerable wasted investment. In addition, each of these terminals need to be maintained and each of the terminals need to be provided with a fully charged battery before being issued to a customer. Accordingly, a certain number of additional, reserve, terminals need to be kept on-hand in order to provide replacements for terminals which have broken or whose battery charge is exhausted.
Accordingly, there is a need for an electronic shopping system that is able to provide a more effective method for allowing customers to self-scan merchandise items and to complete purchase transactions by functioning as a self-checkout station. Such a system should be easily accessible by a multiplicity of customers, and should be cost efficient, such that a retail establishment is able to populate its sales floor with terminals in convenient locations. Ideally, the system should be accessible to any customer who shops in the store. However, the system should also provide additional functions and services to specific customers that have demonstrated a loyalty to a particular store and who have been issued with a customer loyalty club, customer ID card, or some other personalized identification tool. The system should be able to provide up-to-date pricing information to all customers, and be able to give suggestions on promotional items, replenishment items, and the like, to the store's special customers.